Business research news, tips, facts and sources from the Library research team at the London Business School Library.

12 November 2009

The Carbon Management and Offsetting Trends Survey Results 2009

This report from EcoSecurities in partnership with ClimateBiz and Baker & McKenzie provides an authentic insight into the thoughts and opinions of multinational and regional organisations with regards to carbon management strategies and offsetting. Furthermore, the report examines the critical factors which drive end-users to purchase carbon offsets as well as the buyers’ desires in terms of project type, location and standard. This year’s survey involved over 300 corporations, covering a wide variety of geographies and industry sectors. Specifically, 280 responses were received from a diverse range of organisations and an additional 31 responses received from carbon companies. Encouragingly, despite the gloomy outlook for the world’s economy in 2009, green issues have remained high on the agenda with both senior management and corporate boards.

Some of the key findings include:

Over three quarters of companies have implemented or have started developing a carbon management strategy

Two thirds of respondents have already offset their carbon emissions or will consider offsetting in the future

Environmental benefits (91%) were highlighted as one of the main motivations for interest in carbon offsets, closely followed by carbon neutrality and marketing (89%)

72% of participants nominated the US as the most desirable geographic region for purchasing offsets; this may reflect the desire for domestic projects as 56% of the respondents came from North America. Africa and South America were also rated as highly desirable locations for emission reduction projects